Where are all the other great shark movies?
Thirty-five years ago this summer, the first and only great movie about great white sharks debuted. It was in fact the first and only great movie about sharks, period. The third full-length Steven Spielberg feature, and the first one with a serious budget, Jaws is one of the most admired and, in a certain way, beloved films ever made. It is also one of the most influential; after the success of Jaws, followed two years later by Star Wars, the age of expensive, hi-tech film-making was upon us, and Hollywood would never be the same. Jaws made Roy Scheider, previously a little-noticed character actor, a star; it made Richard Dreyfuss, an annoying, neurotic, nerdy sort of fellow, a star; and it made the brilliant Robert Shaw into the kind of crafty old codger the American public could no longer take for granted, even though he wouldn’t last much longer. Lines such as “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” have become immortal, as has John Williams’s unsettling shark-attack theme, even though th
